scribblings of a reporter

The airport mess

The blue lights sparkling on the edges of the airport runway are beautiful. What’s more amazing is the view of aeroplanes landing at the airport. The to-tractors aligning with the landed aeroplanes for maintenance are an interesting sight. The Boeing 707 or the 777 are mind-blowing for they are the longest aeroplanes. The sight of the landed planes in various sizes, Airbus, DC-10, the boeings (these are the few i know) interest me a lot every time I pass through the boarding. Once inside the immigration, things are very organised and disciplined. Beginning from the immigration to the checking in and boarding, everything goes through an organised process.

Ever took a look outside the airport? It’s a mass (or mess) of people howling there, peeping through the glass corridors and humidifying the area for no good reason. The airport management has failed thoroughly in managing the crowd. Today, I was observing this when I went to receive my friend and his wife at the airport. The authorities have set in different layers of entrances to reduce the human traffic but all in vain. If only that conveyed a message, the crowd would still hold by the grills and gateways and on many occasion block the passage of outgoing vehicles that would carry the arrived passengers at the airport.

Watching at the sea of people stepping on one another and gathering like flies (bees) follow their flock, I realised these are mostly the receivers of the scores of our labour class who work in the middle eastern countries. With due respect, the attendees of the arriving passengers are shown the iron hand of the security guards because of the uncivilised, cattle-market-alike environment they create at the airport. For every incoming passenger, there are five or ten visitors. They would hold on to the grills like monkeys inside the zoos (except that they are people behaving like monkeys outside the arrival section of the airport). I wonder how us people will ever learn to behave.

The ZIA airport, I last saw was not as crowded and dirty as it has become. I was also shocked to see a power outage inside it this time. The electronic television showing the flight schedules has gone out of order. This is not expected for an international airport of its stature. It should be maintained in a much better way. The failure to maintain a calm, hustle-free area for the arriving passenger, is also attributed to the security. Ever since the civil aviation authority handed the security to private service, they have concentrated inside the airport premises but has failed to keep it clean and off the intolerable crowd. The pillar adverts inside the arrival section look as if they were rammed. It looks all messed up.